Volunteers

[flowerpower]

A few of my volunteers have sprung to a tremendous size due to all the rain. Some are doing better than my seed grown plants. I was happy to see a few each of cherry, beefsteak, and plum styles. But because I let my hens in there last fall, I can't go by location as to variety. I will guess that a bunch are Cosmonaut Volkov. I hope not. I wasn't thrilled by it last yr. I am really looking foward to any little Sungolds that pop up.

[jtcm05]

Sungold is a hybrid, so volunteer fruit won't resemble the parent.

[kctomato]

the volunteers I do have

[johno]

Loads of volunteers here. Lots of cherry tomatoes from a cherry mix I planted last year, dadgum Egg gourds from Lord knows how many years ago, etc. Even basil and stevia.

[PapaVic]

I pulled most of the volunteers that sprang up this year because I already had all my tomatoes planted and no room for more.

But in this one small bed ... previously used for tomatoes ... I planted cannas lillies and some ornamental peppers because we erected a fence to hide my large tomato bed and cut this little bed off in such a way as it now is very visible from the street. Hence, it's now an ornamental bed.

Well, anyway ... two volunteers came up between the cannas and the peppers. Both the volunteers came up showing what I initially thought was rugose or something along those lines. Since I had some dwarf tomatoes in the same bed, I thought maybe that's what the volunteers were.

But then the vines got all indeterminate and leggy. Then the blossoms showed clearly that the vines were cherry tomatoes. Now that the plants are well developed and have lots of fruit hanging, the foliage shapes clearly are cerasiforme ... which I understand is some kind of wild tomato.

The only two cherries I had planted anywhere nearby were Golden Gem and Galina's. If you assume Galina's would come back true potato leaf, that leaves Golden Gem. I pulled one plant out because it was interfering with the peppers. The plant I left is using the cannas lillies as support and has gotten about five feet tall or long ... depending on which stem you follow.

The plant I left standing now has lots of fruit clusters, but none of them have as many tomatoes as the Golden Gem had, and all the tomatoes are larger and lumpier than Golden Gem. By lumpy, I mean the individual seed locules are expressing ridges through the skin like on some larger tomatoes. But these tomatoes look like they will only get as big as maybe Large Red Cherry ... just not as smooth.

I love volunteers and wish I had an acre of good garden space to explore more of them.

pv

[flowerpower]

Last yr I had sungold volunteers that were "perfect" and others that were a bit larger. Both tasted equally good and very sweet. I am kinda hoping at least one plant is a currant. I hear all the neighbors saying how they planted Early Girl. So I guess I will at least have the most interesting maters in the area. I won't have the earliest, thats for sure. What was I thinking starting from seed?

[reed]

One of the best tomatoes I ever saw and before I had sense enough to save the seed   was a volunteer from what I'm sure was early girl. It took over a corner of the garden and never got any diseases, it just wouldn't stop making yummy fruits a little smaller than a tennis ball. That one plant probably made more tomatoes that my whole patch that year. I'm growing some early girl this year mostly for the seeds.